When you hear this story, you may think Eric Secor is a mailman. You know, because of the “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” creed.  

Secor is senior assistant director for admissions. He spends four to six weeks every fall visiting high schools, talking with students and guidance counselors about UNH. His territory is New York, from Long Island to Buffalo. 

In October, he had a weeklong trip planned for Westchester County. On Oct. 28, he got a telephone call telling him not to come, that schools would be closed because of the forecasted Hurricane Sandy. He checked on Tuesday and they were still closed. When he learned they would open Wednesday after a two- hour delay, he got in his car and drove the 250 miles to Tarrytown, about 25 miles north of Manhattan.  

“I thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad,” Secor said. “And it didn’t look bad where I was—there wasn’t much physical damage, just a few trees down. The hotel I stayed at in Tarrytown never even lost power.” 

But there was a gas shortage. Some stations were closed; others had a 10-gallon limit. They had lines. Very long lines; Secor waited in one for three hours. Another time, he ran out of gas.  

“The refineries in New Jersey didn’t have any power. And then when they got it back, the harbor was closed. There were lots of variables of who could get gas when,” Secor says. “A lot of people were on edge.” 

And yet he stayed. At one high school, he was the only representative who hadn’t cancelled so he had all the guidance counselors and many students to himself. It was worth the inconvenience, he says. 

He went home for the weekend and returned to New York the following week with three five-gallon gas cans that he called lifesavers. So, the gas problem was better—not over but better. But then it started to snow.

 “It was a really big storm. I was driving and knew I wouldn’t make it to my destination so I cancelled my hotel reservation and checked in to the closest one I could find. It was still snowing the next morning,” Secor says. 

The school he was scheduled to visit, Suffern High School, was two hours away. So, he got up at 5 a.m. and drove through the falling snow to make his appointment.  

“It actually was one of the best visits,” Secor says. “There were a lot of students there.” 

A visit on Long Island went well, too, despite the fact that the area had received six to eight inches of snow and had 60-mile an hour winds. 

“It was just as bad as the hurricane,” Secor says. 

But other college admissions officers had cancelled, meaning that, for the most part,  he had the guidance counselors and students’ undivided attention. 

And while he stayed focused on getting the job done, talking with more than 60 students during that trip, Secor says the experience of working through the aftermath of a hurricane and snowstorm gave him new insight. 

“It definitely gave me more awareness of emergency planning,” Secor says. “I used to think, ‘oh, yeah, I should get gas before the storm hits,’ but it wasn’t a big deal. Now I know that it can be.”